1. Field of the Invention
The present application relates generally to the monitoring of network environments, and more specifically to a method of viewing the availability of a messaging and voice over IP network on a web-site.
2. Description of the Related Art
A messaging network is comprised of multiple messaging hosts interconnected via network paths. The resulting connectivity enables several features, such as sharing of data and other resources on the network. For example, networks enable applications such as electronic mail, network file systems, distributed processing and voice over IP (VOIP). These applications involve the operation of several network elements and provide enhanced communication capabilities. Network elements include hardware devices and software entities which operate according to interface specifications to provide the network communication capabilities. The interfaces are typically based on open standards such as transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) or SNA.
Proper monitoring of such networks is critical in maintaining the network communication capabilities. The proper operation of each network element is often critical in a networking environment, since the malfunctioning of any network element in the path between two computer systems, or two network resources, may adversely impact the applications and services between the two computer systems. Additionally, where the network elements are typically shared by several computer systems, many of them located in remote networks, performance bottlenecks are often of great concern.
A network manager or operator may wish to monitor the status of a remote network. However, it is often impractical to install or provide software for managing each network element on all remote sites. In addition, a manager or operator may wish to monitor the status of the remote network from any of several work stations. More importantly, a manager or operator may wish to view the availability of the entire messaging and VOIP network on a single web site. In this way, network messaging outages and delays can be minimized, thereby reducing the delays in business operations which cause lost time and decreased customer satisfaction, resulting in lost revenue.
Therefore, a need exists for remotely monitoring the availability of an entire messaging and VOIP network on a single web site.
It is therefore an object of the present application to provide a method of viewing and monitoring the availability of an entire messaging and VOIP network from a single web site.
It is another object of the present application to provide a method for viewing and monitoring the availability of an entire messaging and VOIP network by periodically traversing all possible nodes using all existing network routes to ascertain the availability of the entire system.
To achieve the above objects, a method of monitoring the availability of an Internet Protocol (IP) network on a monitor web page in accordance with the present invention is provided, which includes the steps of: reading query information and depositing query requests into a corresponding one of a plurality of request queues; reading the query requests from the corresponding request queue and sending the query requests to at least one remote network device by sending calls over the IP network; receiving a reply to the calls from the at least one remote network device indicating an availability status of the at least one remote network device and processing the availability status; depositing the processed availability status in a Web Site Queue; and retrieving the processed availability status from the Web Site Queue and displaying status information for the at least one remote network device on the monitor web page, the status information being derived from the processed availability status.